[CINC] Local News of Interest

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Local Campaign Urges Consumers to Sack the Use of Disposable Bags
By Sonia Fernandez, Noozhawk Staff Writer
The Ocean Futures Society organizes A Day Without A Bag to promote alternatives.
Jean-Michel Cousteau, center, head of the local Ocean Futures Society, which helped organize Thursday’s A Day Without a Bag event, points out our dependence on plastic bags, as illustrated by two “monsters” each wearing the number of bags the average American shopper uses each year. “We’re using the ocean as our garbage can,” Cousteau said. (Sonia Fernandez / Noozhawk photo)
They’re so ubiquitous that we don’t even really see them anymore: a typical plastic shopping bag, the kind you get from the store. If you’re the average American shopper, you use about 700 of them every year. 
And just because we toss them doesn’t mean they go away. Recent statistics show that about 2 percent of the plastic bags used in America get recycled. The rest wind up taking space in the landfill — or worse, as part of the environment, taking hundreds of years to decompose. 
“We’re using the ocean as our garbage can,” said Jean-Michel Cousteau, head of the locally-based Ocean Futures Society. Plastic bags can wash up on the beach, float on the surface of the water, sink to the bottom or just be suspended underwater and taken, along with other marine trash, by the currents. 
In all cases, the major concern is for the birds and marine creatures that mistake the plastic for some kind of food, or get entangled in them or poisoned by chemicals in the material. What many don’t think about is the kind of toxins that can be passed back to us through the fish and other seafood that we eat. 
The ocean is particularly susceptible, Cousteau said, because plastic bags are easily blown in by the wind, or washed in through creeks, and not easily retrievable. In fact, a vast and remote section of the Pacific Ocean, called the North Pacific subtropical gyre, is essentially one big marine dump, held in place by currents and atmospheric pressure. 
That’s why the Ocean Futures Society and other local groups on Thursday held A Day Without a Bag at Santa Barbara City Hall. It was part of a statewide effort to educate people and encourage them to find alternatives to disposable plastic bags. 
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper and Heal the Ocean were present, as well as representatives from local businesses and government. 
“It all starts with education,” Cousteau said. “If you can change that one habit, it will change a lot of how we dispose of our things.” 
It won’t be an easy change for those of us used to the convenience of getting a plastic bag from the store, and there are cities that have tried to ban plastic that are now experiencing legal actions from the plastics industry. 
For Kira Redmond, executive director of Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, it won’t take anything less than a regulatory measure to make sure this coastal town doesn’t contribute to the swirling mass of trash in the Pacific. 
“Education is very important, voluntary measures can be effective, but there’s really a requirement that we really have a mandate to reduce the use of disposable bags that’s going to get us there,” she said. While much of the legal outcry centers on the claim that banning plastics would result in more use of paper bags — which take more energy to produce and transport — she argued that from an ocean perspective, plastic has less of an effect. 
The average American shopper uses about 700 plastic shopping bags every year. (Sonia Fernandez / Noozhawk photo)
The city of Santa Barbara has turned a sympathetic ear to the cause, and is in the middle of trying to figure out how to reduce, even eliminate, the use of paper and plastic single-use bags — without getting sued. 
Options the city might consider include charging a fee for every disposable bag a customer uses. According to a man-on-the-street poll recently taken by Channelkeeper, people are willing to pay up to 25 cents per bag. Proceeds would go to enforcement of the practice and further outreach. Another option might be to ban one type of bag and charge for another. State legislation prohibits municipalities from charging for plastic. 
The city is still in discussions on the topic. 
It helps, Cousteau and Redmond say, to consider the money businesses can save if they don’t have to pay for so many bags. 
“This could actually be good for business,” Redmond said. 
Several local businesses are already giving their support to the cause, including Anacapa Dive Center, State and A Bar & Grill and Community West Bank, where students from Santa Barbara High’s Dons Net Cafe were conducting a survey and passing out reusable bags Thursday. 
Whatever the city decides to do, it’s very likely to happen before the end of 2010. 
“We know that these bags are awful, and we know they show up in all kinds of places, and they kill animals.” Mayor Marty Blum said. “And they shouldn’t be in our landfill either.” 
 Happy Holidays, Everyone!~Cary Stevens
 

                        
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